In 1986 the RISO Kagaku Corporation introduced the digital duplicator, an automated version of the mimeograph machine.
Duplicators print by pushing ink through a stencil wrapped around a printing cylinder.
Advantages over a photocopier include: soy-based inks in a variety of colors rather than plastic toner, 95% less energy to run
(because there is no heating element or laser involved), and up to 180 prints per minute at a cost of as little as 1/3 of a cent each.
In the United States, these machines are typically found in school district offices and church basements.
Beginning with issue 6, La Norda has been printed on a Riso RP 3505 that was generously donated by the Witt Company.
Issues 1 - 5 were printed on a Xerox DocuTech photocopier at a copy shop near the University of Washington.
The paper is 24/60 lb. Wausau Exact Offset Opaque in a variety of standard office paper colors.
Software used in creating La Norda include Adobe Photoshop CS2 and ACD Canvas X, and Adobe InDesign running on a MacBook G4.
Fonts used: Garamond Premier Pro, an Adobe font family which Robert Slimbach based on Claude Garamond’s metal punches kept at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, Belgium;
and Euphemia, intended by Tiro Typeworks to set Canadian Syllabic script (including various Cree orthographies, Inuktitut and the
historical Carrier/Dakelh script dulkw'ahke), but used here for its clear, humanist sans-serif Latin characters. Since issue 9, the standard Norda typefaces are: Mason Neue, a lovely contemporary Grotesque by Timo Gaessner, and Century Schoolbook Italic, originally designed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1919.